Archive for the ‘mass transit strikes’ tag

We’ve seen versions of this Sid Avery photo, taken of an unnamed Los Angeles freeway in 1955 (we’re guessing the 101), floating around the web purporting that it shows typical 4:30 p.m. rush hour gridlock (we most recently spotted it on Roger Wilkerson’s Tumblog), but we think that might not be the whole story here. Recall from a prior L.A. carspotting exercise that the city suffered from a transit strike that year, specifically that June, so this could be the result of tens of thousands (or more) bus riders suddenly forced to use their cars to get to and from work. Whether typical or not, it still makes for a great highway scene. What do you see here?

A couple years ago, we found a shot of a jampacked parking lot in Washington, D.C., shot during a bus strike in May 1974 by Jim Pickerell for the Documerica project. Pickerell had shot plenty more photos of that strike, but we weren’t able to come up with any more full-size images from that series until just recently. No locations specified for these shots, so if you’re familiar with our nation’s capital, see if you can pinpoint where Pickerell took them.

(Yes, this last one is a zoomed-in, slightly differently framed version of the scene we previously included, but the photo is rather clear, so we thought it worth including the scene again.)

As we’ve noted before, mass transit strikes always make for good carspotting opportunities. In 1962, London experienced a one-day tube strike that caused massive traffic jams, and British Pathe, in typical British Pathe style, focused on some of the more unusual means some Londoners took to get to work.

And while we were cruising British Pathe’s archives on YouTube, we came across this wartime clip discussing Queen (then Princess) Elizabeth II’s experience as an ambulance driver and mechanic. I feel better about the British monarchy knowing there’s a greasemonkey on the throne.